October 1st, 2006

 

After three weeks in the motherland, we’ve finally come back home. South Africa is such an amazing place… Other than the awesome wildlife and breath taking scenery, it was a very humbling experience learning and experiencing the culture of the people. I know that I was born in Africa and had lived there for 11 years… but back then as a child your focus is aimed elsewhere and you can’t really appreciate things for what they are because your life is so much simpler. Personally the highlight of the trip was learning about the history of the countries we visited and the struggles that the people faced from day to day. It was definitely a moving experience.

After spending almost 24 hours traveling and being in transit we arrived in South Africa. Things aren’t as efficient in this country in comparison to the places that we’ve visited. We spent almost 3 hours waiting to go through customs, collect our luggage and to be picked up by our courtesy shuttle… I guess we worked out why the shuttle was free… after waiting almost 1.5 hours for it we finally got picked up. When we arrived at the Gemini Back Packers Lodge we were so tired that we crashed and slept for almost 12 hours. We had an early start the next day being picked up at 5am ready for our big drive to Victoria falls which is located on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. This was the start of out Acacia Africa Tour which was a 10 days camping/traveling tour though Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

The first day of our tour we drove 900 Km’s in one day and it took us about 13 hours!! Even though Botswana is the “dust ball of Africa” it had some amazing wildlife out on the plains along the roads we drove along. We had lunch in Francistown which is the second largest city in Botswana and camped overnight in Nata which is a town close to the border of Zimbabwe..

We arrived in Livingstone (Zambia) the next day and had plenty of tours/trips available for us to choose ranging from white water rafting, canoeing, bungee jumping, quad biking etc. On our first night in Livingstone we did a sunset cruise along the Zambezi River and were provided with dinner and free alcohol all night long! We spotted pods of hippos and elephants that had come to the riverbank to drink water.

The next day Tash and I decided to do the Lion Encounter. We were taken to Zimbabwe at a site where we were able to walk with 3 lions who were “tame” and were part of a breeding/conservation program. It was a bit scary when you think that these guys are at the top of the food chain for a reason. After being briefed we began our walk and were met by 2 male lions and 1 lioness who were roughly 18 months old and weighing in at about 120kg each! Phoenix the dominant male was such an amazing creature. Even though his mane was not fully developed you could see the prestige that this creature bestowed. The commanding power that was evident when you looked into the his eyes was intimidating at times, yet he still played  around like a house cat playing with pieces of bark jumping and climbing up trees. The second part of the tour introduced us to 3 cubs that were 6-9 months old. They were much more playful and one of the cubs started to gnaw on Tash’s leg. Since the cubs looked like oversized cats Tash didn’t mind until it started to get a bit carried away and the trainer intervened. Walking with the King of the jungle is one experience that I’ll never forget… 

Victoria falls is known to the locals as “Mosi Oa Tunya” which means “The Smoke That Thunders.” The falls were a disappointing sight at this time of the year because it is the dry season. From the Zambian side of the border there was not much flow at all and I didn’t realise how bad it was until I took to the skies… I did an optional side tour through a company called Batoka Sky who offered a 15 minute flight over the Victoria falls in what is called a Micro light. It’s basically a hang glider with an undercarriage that can seat 2 people and is driven by a propeller. It was such an amazing view flying 1500 feet over the falls and though the canyons. I got to see why everyone said that the falls are much better when viewed from the Zimbabwe side of the border… even though we were so high up you could still feel the spray from the thundering falls. We weren’t allowed to take cameras up for safety reasons, but we had plenty of shots taken by the pilot using a wing mounted camera.

 

 

As Saj was doing his microlight flight over Vic Falls, I wanted to make the most of close animal encounter as I can-this is why I chose the elephant back safari. The ride was about 1-1.5hr and there were 6 adult elephants and 1 calf. I’ve done quite a few of elephant rides, and I give 2 thumbs and toes up for this one. One of the reasons was that they treat the elephants very well, they never hit/abuse the elephants on training, instead they reward them when they do well. The elephants are there by choice, they could easily leave their home and join the many wild herds of elephants that they meet everyday, however, they chose come home to their stable at sunset, that’s gotta say something.

 

I have never seen African Elephants in real life before, so I was anticipating to see how HUGE they are. My elephant’s name was Bob, he happened to be the biggest bull in the herd. He weighs about 5 tons (5000Kg), is 32 yrs old and he is so tall. Initially, I was a little nervous when I had to climb up on his back, if I slip I could be in a lot of trouble. But after 10 mins went by, I was thoroughly enjoying the ride. We went through the open savannah and through the hills and small lakes. There was a guy with a rifle that walked along with us, just in case if we encounter wild herds of elephants. Wild African elephants can be very aggressive, especially when they have calves to protect. Don’t get me wrong, the rifle is not used to shoot them, he just needs to make a couple of shots in the air to shoo them away if they get too close to us.

After the ride, I had a chance to feed Bob as a thank you for the smooth journey and took photos before I said goodbye. Below is a photo of me and Bob and you can see how extremely huge he is  in comparison to the Asian bull elephant.

 

The next day we left Vic Falls and made our way down to Thebe-Kasane where we stayed overnight in a campsite. Chobe National Park is the 2nd largest NP in Botswana and is well known of its elephant population. (approx. 120,000). We were picked up by an open vehicle suitable for game drive from our camp site. It was a 3 hour game drive and true enough, we saw an abundance of elephants. There were literally thousands of elephant herds and they were everywhere..! We encountered many elephants crossing the river, road and even about 5m in front of us, sometimes you get a mother and a baby walking closely together. What an exhilarating feeling to observe them in the wild as opposed to in the zoo with the cages around them. This time, we’re in their territory, this is where they live and they rule the house. So if we get too close to their personal space or especially their young, they will tell us to back off by flaring their ears or giving us a sharp look and shaking their heads… we have to respect that, otherwise someone will get hurt and it won’t be the elephants that’s for sure… 😛

 

We also spotted other wildlife such as baboons, warthogs, hippos, giraffes, buffalos, impalas, kudu, etc. We finished viewing just before sunset and arrived at the camp in time for dinner.

 

Kruger National Park is roughly the size of Belgium and has approximately 3000 Km’s of roads throughout the park. My feelings of the experience there were a bit mixed. It was great in the sense that we saw “the big 5” – Buffalos, lions, leopards (twice – a very rare sighting at the best of times), elephants and a rhino. The down side about the park is that when people make a sighting word gets around quickly and before you know it there are 100 cars trying to get a glimpse of a pride of lions that is laying camouflaged in the grass 200 metres from the sealed roads. People get frustrated and you get some idiots cursing and yelling while tooting their horn. *great tactic for keeping the wildlife around* – NOT!

The Cheetah Project is a private organisation that is interested in the preservation of this endangered species. We were taken throughout the sanctuary and were shown their breeding project as well as the facilities and local friendly faces. Other than cheetahs, this place is home to the African Wild Dog which is another endangered species, most species of antelopes and plenty of wild birds, cats and lions. It’s very touching to see the work being done at places like this in order to preserve the animals of today for our kids…

 

The final leg of our second tour was a stop at the Mafunyani Cultural Village. We were greeted by the beating of African Drums and the sweet smile of little children as they sang us a welcoming song. We were taken on a tour of the village and were shown how the women weaved mats, prepare meals and ground maize corn to make Nshima (the staple diet – sorta like rice for asians). Later that night we were treated to a tribal dance complete with authentic costumes and later on we were given a chance to get out boogie on! We slept over night in a traditional hut which was an awesome experience. It’s great to see that even in this day an age where countries are developing there are still places where the youth can still stay in touch with their roots. The children that descended from the tribes within the region who live in the town and cities are able to come and stay at the village to learn about their traditional way of life.

 

As the son of the chief told us; “you won’t know where you’re going… unless you know where came from.”

We met a great bunch of people on this trip: Yana, Peter, Kevin, Tom, Freda, Maria and Yuri the crazy Brazillian! It was good fun learning about each other and sharing stories. It was such a crack up to see Yana scream for Yuri as he plunged 68 metres on the gorge swing… it was even funnier finding out that Yuri didn’t know that there was a free fall of 2.8 seconds before you start swinging… anyways… the photos in the gallery says it all… Hope you guys keep in touch and I’m sure our paths will cross again…

While staying in Johannesburg I was lucky enough to spend some time with an old friend from Zambia. Eitzaz and I went to nursery, lower and upper school together and we lived across the road from each other. It was great fun watching old home videos, reading old school reports and reminiscing about our childhood in Africa. I’m so happy after 13 years apart that we managed to pick up where we left off, as if it was yesterday… Your mom’s cooking is tha bomb (just how I remembered it) and it was great seeing Amara as well.

Until next time… It’s goodbye once again…